A Thousand Miles
by Pallan Minerva
Summary: Shirogane Takeru has seen too much at this point in his life. He's not ready to be back here. Nor are any of the thousands of other Shirogane Takerus that are stuck in his head with him.


" _Takeru-chan… I'm really sorry… bye-bye…"_

Shirogane Takeru woke with a start. His whole body shook, warm tears falling from his eyes. A cacophony of emotion raged through his body, and he couldn't help the gasp that escaped his lips.

"Mmm…? What's wrong, Takeru…" Mikoto slowly awoke next to him, trailing off into a yawn.

Takeru clenched the bedsheets as hard as he clenched his eyelids shut, trying to stop the tears from coming out. A futile effort.

"I… I don't know." His voice shook with the effort of keeping himself under control.

"Did you have a bad dream?" Tama asked, concern written all over her.

"No… not exactly."

"…" Ayamine's hand caressed his cheek, wiping away at the tears. "…crybaby." Her words were harsh, but the tone behind them conveyed all the love and anxiety needed to let him know that they were not meant to hurt.

He chuckled at his lover's attempts to help him recover. "Yeah… always have been, always will be."

"Takeru…" Sakaki leaned in and wrapped her arms around him, rubbing circles on his back with her soft fingers.

A sob wracked his body once more. This was abnormal, but the dream…

"It was so _real_ …" he murmured under his breath.

Soft lips pressed against his own.

"But it was not, Takeru." Meiya's whispers always conveyed the same strength as her loud proclamations once did. "You are here, with me, and there is nothing more real than that."

Lacking an answer, he buried his face in her collarbone and released the floodgates completely. It was many hours before he fell back asleep.

* * *

Shirogane Takeru woke up the next morning with a start. A cold sweat dribbled down his neck as he sat up in the darkness just before the daylight.

 _What? What happened? Where am I?_

"Mmm…" His right side. He looked over and froze. The blue-haired sword-wielding bombshell of a companion was there… sleeping garments and all. Her indigo eyes, that in the past had struck him harsher than any BETA, slowly opened and adjusted to the dim conditions. "Takeru? Have you awoken? What is it?"

 _No. No way. This is impossible. I'm not supposed to be back here._

He couldn't find the words to speak, and Meiya's face folded in confusion in response. "Is there something wrong?"

He could hear footsteps loudly thumping as someone clambered up the steps. "Takeru-chaaaan!"

 _How. How?!_

Sumika slammed through the door, as exuberant as she had ever been. Her face morphed from excitement to shock to anger in the span of a few seconds, the same features he had fell in love with so long ago.

"Takeru-chaaaan…" She growled as she came in close, her fist rearing back to slam right into his and send him sky-high as she had always done when he decided to be the biggest idiot on the planet. "You big, stupid, idioooo-"

He caught the fist as it came within a foot of his face, his grip tightening around her clenched hand. She stopped, shocked that he managed to catch it. He stopped, shocked that she was there. That he was there.

"Su… mi… ka…?" It wasn't the 00-Unit. It was really her.

"Let goooo!" She cried as she tried to pull her fist back. He complied and she frowned, shaking her hand to relieve the tension and pain from it.

He looked at Meiya, then back at Sumika, then back at Meiya, and once more at Sumika.

"Takeru?"

"Takeru-chan?"

Something broke in his head. He jumped out of bed and ran away. He couldn't stand it. The sight of the most important women in his life, before everything had been destroyed… it snapped him into a thousand different pieces. He ran down from his bedroom, five steps at a time, stumbling onto the landing.

"Ara? Takeru-sama?"

"Tsukiyomi-san…" He murmured as he looked over to find the green-haired aide of Meiya in the kitchen.

" _Are you feigning ignorance?! Why is there a dead person here?!"_

He clenched his teeth and continued running.

"Takeru-chan!"

"Takeru, wait!"

Impossible. He wasn't supposed to be back here yet. He wasn't finished.

Out the door. Onto the street. The perfectly intact street. His vision lanced around at the street that he had grown up on, the street he spent years of his life on. The street that Meiya had cleared out to provide enough space for her to live with him in one of the most chaotic times of his life.

The street that wasn't destroyed in the universe he had begun to think he would never come back to.

Sumika's house was not destroyed by a Type-77 Gekishen. There were trees and grass everywhere. Cars parked on the side of the road.

He was back home.

"Takeru… chan?"

Sumika slowly approached him, worry in her eyes. He legs folded under him, ignoring the momentary sting of his bare knees hitting the asphalt. Tears began to obscure his vision. He couldn't look at her. He couldn't look at any of it. It hurt. It hurt so badly.

"Auuu…" He groaned, his head pounding. He could feel the memories of a thousand timelines intersect and overlay. He was losing himself in it. It was so hard to grasp a hold of your individual self when your consciousness was thrust into a sea of different memories that formed a different you.

"Tsukiyomi!"

"Yes, Meiya-sama, right away!"

"Stop… please…" He murmured under his breath. Arms wrapped around him, two pairs of arms.

"Takeru, I am right here. Please stay with me." Meiya's voice called to him as the abyss engulfed him.

"Takeru-chan, are you okay?" Sumika joined her, their sounds stretching out into a lifeline for him to grasp onto. He managed not to lose himself, but he did not manage to keep himself conscious.

His last waking moments allowed him to inhale the concerned faces of Meiya and Sumika, the fear in their hearts shining brightly to him.

 _No… I wasn't finished…_

* * *

So, what is this? When's it gonna continue? I don't know. I had ideas running around inside my head that I had to get down. I'm not a good enough writer to continue at this time. We'll see what happens in the future, okay?

Don't count on this ever updating again.

Edit: Except for me to fix some stupid mistakes that I just made.


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